Amazon says this about the book: It is 1988. On a dead-end street in a run-down suburb there is a music shop that stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. Like a beacon, the shop attracts the lonely, the sleepless, and the adrift; Frank, the shop’s owner, has a way of connecting his customers with just the piece of music they need. Then, one day, into his shop comes a beautiful young woman, Ilse Brauchmann, who asks Frank to teach her about music. Terrified of real closeness, Frank feels compelled to turn and run, yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems, and Frank has old wounds that threaten to reopen, as well as a past it seems he will never leave behind. Can a man who is so in tune with other people’s needs be so incapable of connecting with the one person who might save him? The journey that these two quirky, wonderful characters make in order to overcome their emotional baggage speaks to the healing power of music—and love—in this poignant, ultimately joyful work of fiction.

Monday, December 25, 2017

I'm not even sure if this has made it to the people I mailed it to yet (and I'm not done mailing either so apologies to those seeing it here before in their mailboxes but c'est la vie.

Did you think (or hope) I’d forgotten to write 2017’s Knox year in review? Although it hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles and one of these years it’s going to fall, this year is not that year. Your Christmas miracle will have to come from another source. Sorry, not sorry. Oh, and fair warning, there’s language in this one, because, well… Keep reading and you’ll understand.

January: On New Year’s Eve a stray cat wandered into our garage and showed no inclination to leave. We searched high and low for the family surely missing fat and friendly “Jasmine” but had no luck. On New Year’s Day we woke up to a flock of flamingos in our front yard. Another flock materialized the day after K. removed the first six. No one has ever claimed flocking us despite how much fun it is to say. K. went back to Minneapolis for her Great Group Reads gig this month and so got her annual dose of snow and cold out of the way early.

February: D. took a new position with Salesforce. He’s doing something with the health and wealth clouds. If you know what that means, you’ve got more than one up on K. (although she’s not averse to a wealth cloud around here at all). Also this month, we decided that “Jasmine” would officially be a K. The vet took one look at our enormous cat and said what a beautiful boy he was. Apparently in this case, a lack of dangly bits just meant he’d been neutered, not that he was a she. So Jasmine is now Jazz-man and is fat and mostly happy as an indoor cat. Gatsby, however, is less than happy with the new family member and is practicing tolerance, at least when we’re watching.

March: D.’s new position increased his travel a lot so we rarely saw him this month. T. turned 15 and started outdoor track. He didn’t get over the bar at all in the winter season but did make height for the first time this month. It’s totally amazing the amount you have to learn when your kid takes up an unlikely sport. You Tube sure helps although matching the parts of his vaults with the parts of Olympic caliber athletes’ vaults for comparison can be a real challenge.

April: W. turned 20 this month, leaving us with only two teenagers. We can’t possibly be old enough to have a child who is so very old. In other news proving our age, our baby, T., started behind the wheel this month. Appropriately enough, when the older two were home for Spring Break, K. forgot there would be another car in the driveway and she promptly backed into it on her way to picking T. up from his final behind the wheel. Our insurance was so very pleased with all of these new developments.

May: R. finished up her first year at college and promptly head up to Michigan to wait tables at the Les Cheneaux Culinary School. W. chose to stay at home and work in dad’s favorite bar, eventually becoming the expediter in the back of house so he didn’t have to talk to annoying people like his father and friends. Heehee. Meanwhile, K. went to Maine on a girls’ weekend and barely resisted bringing home much lobster or moose printed stuff.

June: Our most exciting month yet, K. found a dark spot that turned out to be a hole above the cabinets in the kitchen. She thought it might be from mice until W. flushed his toilet as she stood on the counter looking at the hole. Yes, we have had a shit waterfall behind the kitchen cabinets for who knows how long. We know you’re insanely jealous of this unusual and long hidden water feature, right? So started the nightmare that is still currently ongoing: destruction, disinfection, repair, and renovation of the kitchen. A shit waterfall, y’all. We considered stopping the letter here because what else is there to say? But we’ll soldier on. Oh and to prove what a loving wife K. is, she and T. went ahead and left for Michigan on schedule leaving the mess for D. to sort out.

July: While D. and W. worked at home in hot and muggy Charlotte and R. worked close to the cottage, K. and T. kicked back and enjoyed their free time in Michigan, swimming, sailing, and relaxing by the nightly fire. T. also went to Michigan State for a pole vault camp this month. He was inordinately pleased by the fact that his hands blistered so badly that he had gauze mittens on his hands when K. picked him up. This is some sort of badge of honor or something. Teenage boys are weird!

August: D. and W. got to come to Michigan for a brief week of vacation before heading back to work. T. sailed in the Sunfish Regatta again and got second place this year. He’s either improving or he got lucky. Your choice. We had to head home to Charlotte so W. and R. could head back to college for their junior and sophomore years respectively and T. could start his sophomore year of high school. When we got home we realized the house is waging a war against us…and winning. Mold on several ceilings, a burning smell that turned out to be the furnace dying, and still working on fixing the shit waterfall, coming home was so pleasant. Not.

September: R. turned 19 this month, adding to the evidence that we’re definitely old. We went up to High Point for Family Weekend but we only got to see W. as R. had gone off to spend the weekend with a friend. It’s like we embarrass her or something!

October: K. was lucky enough to spend a week in Italy with her parents and sister this month. (Nothing like horning in on her sister’s belated birthday trip!) Only the W.s could have so many bathroom related disasters in one trip but on the plus side, they all know how to say toilet paper in Italian now. In more K. travel news, she headed to New York City this month for the WNBA’s 100th anniversary celebration. If you have to ask anything besides how many bookstores she visited while she was there, you clearly don’t know her all that well.

November: The house thought we’d gotten a little complacent so this month we found rotten windows that needed to be replaced. 14 windows and 2 doors later… Oh, and the kitchen renovation is still moving at a snail’s pace. ::sigh:: T. spent this month in rehearsals for his latest play, Triple Blind Date and juggling his acting with indoor track. We weren’t fooled by the indoor moniker this year though, knowing up front it’s all polar bear all the time.

As 2017 comes to a close, we hope that all of you are surrounded by family, peace, love, and happiness now and throughout the coming year.

The Lake House by Kate Morton
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors
Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan

Reviews posted this week:

nothing

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
Morningstar by Ann Hood
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Song of Two Worlds by Alan Lightman
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
A Season of Ruin by Anna Bradley
Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
Sourdough by Robin Sloane
A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Living the Dream by Lauren Berry
Lawyer for the Dog by Lee Robinson
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision by Sebastian Matthews
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Shelter by Jung Yun
Books for Living by Will Schwalbe
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais
Wicked Weeds by Pedro Cabiya
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Sunrise Canyon by Janet Dailey
The Brown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen
Embracing the Seasons by Gunilla Norris
Wicked Autumn by G.W. Malliett

The book is being released by John Scognamiglio Books on December 26, 2017.

Amazon says this about the book: Set in 1950s Louisiana, Mandy Mikulencak’s beautifully written and emotionally moving novel evokes both The Help and Dead Man Walking with the story of an unforgettable woman whose quest to provide meals for death row prisoners leads her into the secrets of her own past.

Many children have grown up in the shadow of Louisiana’s Greenmount State Penitentiary. Most of them—sons and daughters of corrections officers and staff—left the place as soon as they could. Yet Ginny Polk chose to come back to work as a prison cook. She knows the harsh reality of life within those walls—the cries of men being beaten, the lines of shuffling inmates chained together. Yet she has never seen them as monsters, not even the ones sentenced to execution. That’s why, among her duties, Ginny has taken on a special responsibility: preparing their last meals.

Pot roast or red beans and rice, coconut cake with seven-minute frosting or pork neck stew . . . whatever the men ask for Ginny prepares, even meeting with their heartbroken relatives to get each recipe just right. It’s her way of honoring their humanity, showing some compassion in their final hours. The prison board frowns upon the ritual, as does Roscoe Simms, Greenmount’s Warden. Her daddy’s best friend before he was murdered, Roscoe has always watched out for Ginny, and their friendship has evolved into something deep and unexpected. But when Ginny stumbles upon information about the man executed for killing her father, it leads to a series of dark and painful revelations.

Truth, justice, mercy—none of these are as simple as Ginny once believed. And the most shocking crimes may not be the ones committed out of anger or greed, but the sacrifices we make for love.

Monday, December 18, 2017

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date. I've been ridiculously sick and our house has had crisis after crisis keeping me busy so there's been about no reading or reviewing going on here and with everything I am so ridiculously behind on for Christmas, I don't anticipate next week being much better. :-(

The Lake House by Kate Morton
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors
Embracing the Seasons by Gunilla Norris
Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan

Reviews posted this week:

nothing

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
Morningstar by Ann Hood
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Song of Two Worlds by Alan Lightman
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
A Season of Ruin by Anna Bradley
Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
Sourdough by Robin Sloane
A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Living the Dream by Lauren Berry
Lawyer for the Dog by Lee Robinson
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision by Sebastian Matthews
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Shelter by Jung Yun
Books for Living by Will Schwalbe
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais
Wicked Weeds by Pedro Cabiya
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
Sunrise Canyon by Janet Dailey
The Brown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen

Amazon says this about the book: Set in the Carolinas in the 1940s, The Road to Bittersweet is a beautifully written, evocative account of a young woman reckoning not just with the unforgiving landscape, but with the rocky emotional terrain that leads from innocence to wisdom.

For fourteen-year-old Wallis Ann Stamper and her family, life in the Appalachian Mountains is simple and satisfying, though not for the tenderhearted. While her older sister, Laci—a mute, musically gifted savant—is constantly watched over and protected, Wallis Ann is as practical and sturdy as her name. When the Tuckasegee River bursts its banks, forcing them to flee in the middle of the night, those qualities save her life. But though her family is eventually reunited, the tragedy opens Wallis Ann’s eyes to a world beyond the creek that’s borne their name for generations.

Carrying what’s left of their possessions, the Stampers begin another perilous journey from their ruined home to the hill country of South Carolina. Wallis Ann’s blossoming friendship with Clayton, a high diving performer for a traveling show, sparks a new opportunity, and the family joins as a singing group. But Clayton’s attention to Laci drives a wedge between the two sisters. As jealousy and betrayal threaten to accomplish what hardship never could—divide the family for good—Wallis Ann makes a decision that will transform them all in unforeseeable ways . . .

Monday, December 11, 2017

Wicked Weeds by Pedro Cabiya
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Lake House by Kate Morton
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
Morningstar by Ann Hood
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Song of Two Worlds by Alan Lightman
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
A Season of Ruin by Anna Bradley
Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
Sourdough by Robin Sloane
A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Living the Dream by Lauren Berry
Lawyer for the Dog by Lee Robinson
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision by Sebastian Matthews
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Shelter by Jung Yun
Books for Living by Will Schwalbe
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais
Wicked Weeds by Pedro Cabiya
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer

Thursday, December 7, 2017

When I lose something and cannot find it no matter how long I look, when I finally give up on it and consign it to memory only, it has always comforted me a little to think that the Borrowers, from Mary Norton's classic children's tale, have found it and are using it lovingly. But what if there was a person out there who collected and catalogued lost items with the aim of one day reuniting them with their owners and that person had my own lost object in his or her safe keeping? It would be comforting to think that my things were still out there, found and cared for, their stories preserved, until the time came for me to find them again. In a sense, that's the lovely premise of Ruth Hogan's novel, The Keeper of Lost Things. From a hair bobble to a single glove, a puzzle piece to a small, painted wooden house, these things and more are found and carefully kept, awaiting the day they can be returned to their rightful owners.

Anthony Peardew is an older man, once a celebrated author, who has lived alone for forty years in a magical sort of house, having lost Therese, the love of his life shortly before their wedding. After Therese's death he realized he'd lost the small communion medallion she gave him to always keep them connected and although he didn't find the small and meaningful charm, it inspired him to collect and safeguard other people's lost treasures. In his twilight years, he hires Laura, damaged and adrift after her divorce, to be his housekeeper and personal assistant, warning her to never go into his locked study. Never tempted to defy this order, she works contentedly for him for a handful of years. After his death, she is surprised to discover that he's left the house and all of his possessions to her. His major request accompanying this bequest is that she now go into the study, behold the immense, carefully catalogued collection of lost items he's found over the years and attempt to return them to their owners because if even one item's return will ease a broken heart, it will all have been worth it. As Laura slowly ventures out of her self-imposed isolation and befriends first Sunshine, a young woman in the neighborhood with Down's Syndrome and a special sensitivity to the things and vibrations around us that others never feel, and then Freddy, Anthony's gardener, she has to figure out how best to find the lovingly kept items' original owners, how to placate the ghost of Therese, who still haunts the house, and how to open her own heart to all the possibilities of living life to the fullest. In a parallel narrative, a young woman named Eunice applies for a job at a small publisher and promptly falls for her handsome boss, Bomber, becoming his best friend and confidante but never anything more. She devotes her life to loving Bomber knowing that he loves her back only Platonically.

The vast majority of the story is focused on Anthony, the past that led him to be the keeper of lost things, and then on Laura, who is herself very clearly one of Anthony's lost things. Each of the inanimate items highlighted in the book is given its own short story, but whether it is one written by Anthony or one contained in the item itself is left to the reader to decide. In order to cut some of the sweetness of the premise of the novel as a whole, these object stories veer from heartwarming to serious to desperately sad. There is a fair bit of humor woven into the novel to leaven it too. My favorite being after Laura hears neighborhood gossips in a local pub speculating on why Anthony left her the house. As she walks past their table leaving the pub, she informs them it was because of "Fellatio on Fridays." The fact that one of these nasty Nellys doesn't even know what this means makes it that much more entertaining. There are only very light touches (and a few hidden clues) almost connecting the story of Anthony with the story of Eunice and Bomber for the majority of the story and although they come together well in the end, a little more explicitness might not have been amiss so that the reader wasn't confused as to why these very different tales were together from the start. Both are thematically similar though, focused as they are on caring for and supporting those around you, accepting them for who they are and the struggles they face, and loving people, dogs, and the important bits and bobs of their life to the very end. Although there is a wistful sort of quality to the novel, it would be a perfect novel for those who are looking for a book to counter the dysfunction and unhappiness of so much of current literature. In the end, it is that elusive book that leaves a warm glow in its wake without resorting to sappiness or cliche. Very much a novel of love and loss, compassion and redemption, this is a gentle, charming, and thoroughly worthwhile read.

Monday, December 4, 2017

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
The Lake House by Kate Morton
The Center of the World by Jacqueline Sheehan
A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
The Beauty of the End by Debbie Howells
Country of Red Azaleas by Domnica Radulescu
A Hard and Heavy Thing by Matthew J. Hefti
Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones
The Company They Kept edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal
Thousand-Miler by Melanie Radzicki McManus
Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe
Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Hope Has Two Daughters by Monia Mazigh
After the Bloom by Leslie Shimotakahara
Metis Beach by Claudine Bourbonnais
Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Coco Chanel by Lisa Chaney
The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love by Per J. Andersson
The New York Time Footsteps by various authors
Wicked Weeds by Pedro Cabiya

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
City Mouse by Stacey Lender
Cutting Back by Leslie Buck
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
A Narrow Bridge by J.J. Gersher
The Never-Open Desert Diner by James Anderson
The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler
Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani
How to Survive a Summer by Nick White
Bramton Wick by Elizabeth Fair
The Finishing School by Joanna Goodman
Meet Me in the In-Between by Bella Pollen
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg
The Island of Books by Dominique Fortier
Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Him, Me, Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
What Are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffee
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware
The Talker by Mary Sojourner
When the Sky Fell Apart by Caroline Lea
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
Last Things by Marissa Moss
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
Civilianized by Michael Anthony
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
In the Woods of Memory by Shun Medoruma
Before the Wind by Jim Lynch
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
Inhabited by Charlie Quimby
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
One Good Mama Bone by Bren McClain
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
You and I and Someone Else by Anna Schachner
Meantime by Katharine Noel
The Portrait by Antoine Laurain
So Much Blue by Perceval Everett
The Velveteen Daughter by Laurel Davis Huber
Mothers and Other Strangers by Gina Sorell
This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell
How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry
Between Them by Richard Ford
Kinship of Clover by Ellen Meeropol
The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker
Morningstar by Ann Hood
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Song of Two Worlds by Alan Lightman
The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Old Herbaceous by Reginald Arkell
The Original Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
A Season of Ruin by Anna Bradley
Incontinent on the Continent by Jane Christmas
We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love by Lara Vapnyar
Sourdough by Robin Sloane
A Paris All Your Own edited by Eleanor Brown
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Living the Dream by Lauren Berry
Lawyer for the Dog by Lee Robinson
Lily and the Octopus by Stephen Rowley
Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision by Sebastian Matthews
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
A Well-Made Bed by Abby Frucht and Laurie Alberts
The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser
From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Shelter by Jung Yun
Books for Living by Will Schwalbe
The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Piglettes by Clementine Beauvais

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About Me

A voracious reader, fledgling runner, and full time kiddie chauffeur.
If anyone out there wants to send me books for review (oh please don't fro me in that briar patch!), you can contact me at whitreidsmama (at) yahoo (dot) com. If you do write me there, put the blog name in the subject line or I'm liable to send the unread message to spam. My book review policy can be found here.